


With the End of the World in your Eyes

by river_soul



Category: Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-07
Updated: 2012-04-07
Packaged: 2017-11-03 05:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/378027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/river_soul/pseuds/river_soul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She feels the slick underside of his mouth against her tongue and the beast shifting, yowling inside its human prison.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With the End of the World in your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to jazmin22 for being an awesome beta! This damn story has been sitting on my hard drive for over a year but I’m glad to have it finished!

It’s easier than Chloe expects, to fall into this new life and adjust to another living person breathing beside her, a bed away.

Motels become familiar; Smallville a strange, waning memory.

-

She calls Clark from Mexico City inside a run down Internet café, the payphone handle sticky in her hands. She watches Davis pace outside the shop with his hands in his pockets, shoulders tense and unsure. He seems lost in the flurry of people moving about their day, eyes sliding between the bodies rushing past.

He is careful not to look to the café.

To her.

Chloe watches him until the line rings in her ear, bright and insistent. There is a small bubble of relief when it goes to voicemail. It’s easiest when she doesn’t have to fight against Clark’s pleadings or Oliver’s sharp disapproval.

“Stop trying to find us,” she says after the beep, voice strong and sure. “I’m safe…we’re safe. Please stop looking. You’re making it worse,” she tells them.

She knows they listen to her messages together. It's easy to imagine them, hunched over Clark’s desk in the bullpen, shoulders pressed together to listen, to formulate their next plan.

“I know what I’m doing. I’ve made my decision,” she tells them, careful to keep the uncertainty she knows they’re looking for from her voice. She hangs up without saying goodbye, afraid of the tremble building in her voice and the doubt leaking through.

The sun is bright, white hot against her eyes when she finds Davis in the street. The stiff line of his shoulders soften when she falls in step beside him, the worry on his brow easing. When he takes her hand in his she flexes her fingers around the rough edges of his skin, feels his gentle squeeze in return and breathes out.

-

Clark stares at the Metropolis skyline, streets dark below, and waits. Minutes pass before the elevator door dings and slides noiselessly open. He can see Oliver’s distorted reflection in the windows moving towards him.

“Any word?”

“Just another message,” Clark says and turns to face him. Oliver shifts under the intensity of his gaze. “You?”

“They dumped their passports after they crossed the border. They’ll have new ones by now.” He sighs and Clark stiffens as the expression on Oliver’s face shifts. “Chloe’s…Clark, she’s very good at this. Part of her job as Watchtower was getting us fake papers, helping us move through South America and Europe. She has access to people who can help her disappear.”

“We’ll find her. Find them,” Clark says and the blind determination in his voice makes Oliver look away.

-

Chloe can’t tell if he’s sleeping or not, but his rhythmic breathing is better than the rickety fan that rattles above them. The room is too hot, her skin feels slick with sweat and the mattress is lumpy under her back. She’s a thousand miles away from Smallville and from any comfort or familiarity. She feels alone. Feels scared. Mostly she just feels like crying but Davis is only a few feet away, lying on his own bed.

Her throat burns with her swallowed sobs and she blinks rapidly, tears hot against her skin. After a few seconds when the tightness in her chest dissolves she breathes out in the silence, an unsteady sound that lingers between them. She stares at the shadows playing out on the walls and waits for sleep.

Across the room he shifts, clothes and sheets rustling. “Chloe,” he says, quiet and careful, giving her the chance to pretend she’s asleep. Her answer is noncommittal, a sound low in her throat as she turns over to face him. She can see the edge of his shadow as he sits on the bed. She knows he can see her perfectly in the dark.

“They think I kidnapped you,” he says and for a moment Chloe doesn’t understand. She stares uncomprehending. “The papers…they’re saying I took you, with me. When I disappeared.”

“Lois,” Chloe says, bolts up in the bed. Her hand is halfway to the cheap cell phone before she remembers, struggling with the knowledge that she can’t call her. Not with Clark and Tess looking so closely for them. Not with all they have at stake. She pulls her hands back towards her, cradles them against the light cotton of her pajama bottoms.

“It wasn’t supposed to go like this,” she says finally and the tremble in her voice betrays the resolve she’s trying to bring to the surface again. Lois probably thinks she’s dead or worse, and Chloe feels herself crumbling under the weight of all the courage and certainty that lead her here. It wasn’t meant to go like this.

“I’m sorry,” Davis says, suddenly beside her. “I’m so sorry,” he breathes into her hair and Chloe holds onto him, fingers tight and fearful. The skin of his bare shoulder is smooth and cool against her fevered skin. Her breath hitches, mouth gulping air as his hands move across her back, gentle and soothing.

“It’s ok,” he lies and Chloe prays for strength.

-

“You have to tell her,” Oliver says, face soft as he watches Lois sleeping at her desk. She looks pale and worn out under the weight of Chloe’s disappearance.

“I know. I just…I need more time,” Clark says. He doesn’t look at her, doesn’t look at Oliver either.

“This is killing her Clark. You have to tell her about Chloe, about the truth and Davis. If you won’t, I will,” he threatens.

“Ok,” Clark says, breathes out, “Ok.”

He’s told her once before about his secret, he can tell her again. It’ll be easier this time. He knows her response and knows she’ll accept him whole and actual. The hand he lays on her shoulder is gentle, hesitant but she wakes instantly, Chloe’s name on her lips before her vision clears and she sighs, disappointed. Her gaze flickers between him and Oliver searching, desperate.

“Any news?”

“Lois,” Clark starts before looking back at Oliver. “I have to tell you something.”

-

They don’t talk much during the day and even then it’s only for necessity. Davis drives and Chloe sleeps. Days and counties blend into each other, her whole world boils down to sleeping and eating, moving from the car to another bed. Davis never asks her drive, never gets sleepy or tired but each night he lays down on the other bed in their hotel room, closes his eyes and doesn’t move until the next morning.

-

Clark looks at Lois, face flushed but alive, the line of her back sharp as she bends over the map and talks quietly into her phone. She’s writing something down, her words quick and short. After a moment she snaps the phone shut, carefully placing another push pin into the map. “They’re in Columbia,” she announces and the hope simmering in her eyes is enough to renew the straggling optimism inside Clark. It’s been almost a month without word from Chloe or any of Oliver’s sources.

“One of my contacts said someone matching their description passed through one of the border check points about an hour ago. “

“The jets ready,” Oliver tells them.

“It’s faster if I go on my own,” Clark says. “I’ll bring her back safe,” he promises Lois.

“You better,” she threatens but it’s only a halfhearted warning and the smile she gives him is forced, laden with worry.

-

Chloe dreams about Clark, body lain broken and bloody, at her feet like a prize. The snow is red and Doom looms over her, face a horrible mask of rage. She wakes up to Davis’s face, his hands on her shoulder, shaking her into consciousness. The tendons on his neck strain against his skin and, even in the dark, she can see the red tinge to his eyes.

“He’s close,” Davis chokes out and Chloe’s up in an instant, throwing their belongings into their bags and rushing out after Davis. She’s still in her pajamas when they get into the car, barefoot.

-

“She’s never going to give up, you now that, right?” Oliver asks and for a moment Clark isn’t sure if he’s talking about Lois or Chloe. “Maybe,” Oliver starts, hesitantly, “you should just let her go. She doesn’t want to be rescued.”

“I can’t,” Clark says desperately. He’s lost so much over the years but he can’t lose Chloe. She’s been his only constant, the one fixed point in his life.

“You have other responsibilities,” Oliver cuts in, surprised by the edge in his own voice. “Metropolis is falling apart under your struggle and Lois needs you to be strong. I’ll keep looking but you need to pull it together. You need to be the man Lois thinks you are.”

“I know,” Clark says, but he isn’t looking at Oliver. He’s starring at the sunset, left wondering if Chloe’s watching the same one, a thousand miles away, hoping she’s safe and praying Oliver is right.

-

Tess’s men catch up to them in Peru. Chloe is alone, unprepared and out-numbered. She’s on her knees, mouth bloody when she hears the men behind her scream. Chloe knows without looking that Davis has come for her, despite her plea for him not to. There is nothing she can do now and it grates, this helplessness. It is all she can do to wait, eyes closed until the sound of men dying fades and there is only the stillness of the night.

When she opens her eyes it takes every part of her not to pull away from the creature in front of her. The thing extends its hand towards her, the first real human gesture Chloe has seen. She accepts numbly and allows herself to be pulled up from the dirty floor, guided away. She does not struggle, just concentrates on the gentle pressure of jagged bones and flesh pressing against her palm. The careful way it holds her hand.

When they stop at the mouth of the alley she feels it shudder beside her, skin and bones shifting, melting away. When she looks again it’s just Davis before her, alive but bloody. Human. His eyes are vast, endless with guilt and shame. Chloe feels the beast stirring inside his fragile human chest even now, waiting. It does this for her, gives her Davis, broken and empty, a shell of himself because it is easier.

“Chloe,” he breathes, and she turns away from him. “I didn’t,” he starts and she closes her eyes against the images of the torn bodies behind them in the dirty alley. She doesn’t want to remember this, remember him changing and shifting under the need to protect them, but the images feel like they’re seared against the underside of her eyelids.

“We have to- we have to go,” she tells him thickly, swallowing down the hysteria she feels building.

The hand he rests against her jaw is sticky with blood but firm. “Look at me,” he says and when she does his lips are soft on hers, eyes wide and warm. Her mouth yields under the pressure, opens up to him. He delves deep, desperation cloying the taste of him. She feels the slick underside of his mouth against her tongue and the beast shifting, yowling inside its human prison.

“Tell me to stop,” he says and the desperation in his voice stills her long enough to let him kiss her again. She pushes against his naked chest, his skin slick with blood and sweat but her hands fall away, ghosting over him. He slips a knee between her legs and shoves them apart. She falls forward into him and he grunts, rubs his thigh against her.

“Not here,” she says and he breaks away from her, breathing labored and the expression on his face pained. “We have to leave, Clark-”

“Clark,” Davis repeats, voice dark. He shakes himself, shoulders stiff and jaw clenched. After a moment he relaxes into her and she gives him this moment, to hold her against him and breathe her in. To remember why he’s running.

“Come on,” she says finally, hand settling in his for the walk back to the hotel room, to the stolen jeep and their journey farther south.


End file.
